Uranium fuel from 20,000 disarmed Russian warheads is now generating about half of U.S. nuclear power in a spinoff from a landmark disarmament accord, a top U.S. official said Wednesday.

Rose Gottemoeller, U.S. under-secretary of state for arms control, told a UN committee a 1993 accord between the two former Cold War rivals was one of a growing list of disarmament successes.

The final uranium delivery that the United States is buying from Russia is due to leave St. Petersburg in November, Gottemoeller told the UN disarmament committee.

She hailed the accord as a “significant non-proliferation accomplishment” and said 500 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium has now been processed in Russia.

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Low-enriched uranium left from the downgrading “is delivered to the United States, fabricated into nuclear fuel and used by nearly all U.S. nuclear power plants to generate half of the nuclear energy in the United States,” she said.